Investigation of the relationship between empathy levels attitudes of nurses working in hospital and patient privacy

This descriptive study was conducted to examine the relationship between the empathy levels of nurses working in the hospital and their attitudes towards patient privacy. The study sample consisted of 448 nurses working at Rize Recep Tayyip Erdoğan University Training and Research Hospital, and 238 nurses participated in the study. The data were collected by the researcher between October 2022 and June 2023 through Google Forms using the "Descriptive Information Form", "Patient Privacy Scale" and "Jefferson Empathy Scale". In the evaluation of the data, number and percentage, mean, standard deviation, median, minimum, maximum values for numerical variables, Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, t test, Mann Whitney U test, one-way ANOVA test, Kruskal Wallis test, Post Hoc analysis Bonferroni correction and Spearman test were used. In the study, the mean total score of the nurses from the Patient Privacy Scale was 122.7±10.6 and their privacy attitude levels were found to be high. The mean total score of the nurses on the Jefferson Empathy Scale was 89.7±14.3 and their empathy level was considered to be above average. A statistically significant difference was found in the compassionate care sub-dimension of the scale according to the gender, age, marital status, working time and education level of the nurses. The relationship between the Patient Privacy Scale and the Jefferson Empathy Scale was analysed with the Spearman test and a statistically significant positive relationship was found between the scales (p<0.001; r=0.255). It was shown that the increase in the empathy level of nurses increased patient privacy attitudes, albeit in a weak direction. Increasing empathy level in nurses positively affects patient privacy attitude. Therefore, importance should be given to the content and continuity of pre- and post-graduation training given to nurses on this subject.